ELIZABETHTON  The autopsy conducted on a 4-year-old boy who died last week revealed a BB had penetrated his skull.

Carter County Sheriff Chris Mathes revealed the preliminary results of the autopsy on Saturday. He said the BB was recovered.

Mathes said the investigation into the death of Coty Cox is continuing. Deputies responding to a 911 call to 340 Lovers Lane found the lifeless Cox on Tuesday at 12:25 p.m.

Mathes said the childs mother had left him with two older boys, ages 13 and 10. Mathes said the older boys lied and tried to mislead investigators during the initial stage of the investigation. The sheriff said the boys told the investigators Cox had been jumping on a bed and fell and hit is head on a dresser.

That story did not stand up to what was found in the autopsy, Mathes said. During the investigation, the officers located a high-powered BB gun on the premises.

Sounds like something more than the Daisy’s of old, and may have even been sternly bedecked with cautions “Keep out of reach of children.” But because of the ammunition name equivalence to the Daisy’s of old (BB simply means ball bearing, an ubiquitous item), a panic about all of them could easily arise.

6
posted on 07/07/2013 6:04:46 AM PDT
by HiTech RedNeck
(Whatever promise that God has made, in Jesus it is yes. See my page.)

The old Daisey lever guns shot a BB at around 450 feet per second. With the modern pump-up pellet and BB rifles (like the 760, IIRC) the BB can reach 800 or 900 feet per second. With a four year old, the bone plates int he skull have yet to harden and this might allow a BB from even an old lever rifle to penetrate. But if a ‘hi-powered’ gun was found it was likely one of the pump up jobs which can be pumped ten times for a shot. There are also single lever (the barrel is the lever, increasing leverage) rifles which can exceed 1000 feet per second (google ‘GAMO’).

Maybe some discussion on then and now would be enlightening. What is a high powered BB gun?

Just a disclaimer: I don't know anything about BB guns, since I was only interested in the "real," hunting or personal defense weapons. But my husband had an old-fashioned BB gun he gave to our son, and it would barely chuck a small round BB the length of our deck. It would sting but I doubt it would kill anyone since it didn't even seem to bother the squirrels much..

But after he was 18, our son got one that shoots nasty little pointy projectiles, and that one would hit a piece of wood hard at a distance of 65 feet, the length of our basement. Obviously the second one was more powerful. I'm not sure what the purpose of it is, since it's not a toy and isn't good for target practice, hunting, or home defense.

Yes that is the difference.
My kids have heard me talk about BB gun fights from when I was a kid.
I showed them recently what a high powered pellet gun can do and there’s no doubt they can be deadly.
This one is 1250-140 feet per second depending on type of pellet.
We never used BB guns like that as a kid.
They were mostly pump up where you could often watch the BB in the air.

12
posted on 07/07/2013 6:18:16 AM PDT
by Clump
( the tree of liberty is withering like a stricken fig tree)

I could have easily lost an eye at around age 12/13 in the early 60's when a 22 cal. pellet bounced off of a floating mason jar (at a local flooded stream) and hit me about an inch under my right eye. My last attempt at shooting at floating jars!)

I still have that Benjamin Air rifle and last time I checked it still works well.

13
posted on 07/07/2013 6:19:26 AM PDT
by Las Vegas Dave
(McCain or Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.{TaglineUsed w/SunkenCiv's permission.})

If this had happened Up East instead of Tennessee we could expect a huge media outcry followed by a legislative rush to make tyrannical/draconian laws to punish the entire population for this isolated accident/crime.

15
posted on 07/07/2013 6:37:14 AM PDT
by fella
("As it was before Noah, so shall it be again,")

But we dare not ignore it. Less our lifestyle of individual freedoms are stolen from us by the scum of the earth.
BTW I had my first BB gun at 7 and my first .22 rimfire rifle at 12. And my 3 sons all had a similar childhood and I suspect when they have kids they will pass it down. That is unless the Alinskyites take it away.

16
posted on 07/07/2013 6:37:39 AM PDT
by Vaquero
(Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)

My former next door neighbor was a great father, ex military, reasonably responsible son. He was careful with his BB gun.

The dad was auditioning new wives. One came and spent the weekends with her son. He had never had a BB gun and was infatuated with it. He shot it willy nilly and I have a holed window to prove it. The dad tried but was not vigilant continuously. The boy waited for the unwatched moment and grabbed up the gun.

The powerful ones have such high muzzle velocities that the pellet is supersonic and it cracks like a regular rifle. It makes is hard to pick off a few varmint in the city without letting your neighbors know. I’ve heard a few around us.

18
posted on 07/07/2013 6:47:59 AM PDT
by Right Wing Assault
(Dick Obama is more inexperienced now than he was before he was elected.)

When I was a kid I could fire my Daisy and watch the BB arc toward the targeted object. Adjusting aim was done by changing the elevation of the barrel. LOL

I have three pellet rifles. One will shoot BBs or pellets. Toe are leverage guns and one is a canister gun. The ammo is cheap and shooting those little jewels is a fair substitute for a day at the range burning ammo I do not want to have to replace at the current prices.

We here in East Tennessee know that the current regime wants to crumble the conservative base here, so look for the usual suspects to clamour for 'gun controls' around here as soon as they thugs can get their front groups organized. That's why it took weeks for the Traytable/Zimmerman issue to rise to national prominence in the complicit media, the usual thuggery had to get their orgs in place to raise the noise level when the cameras got set up.

I expect we will see a concerted campaign rising in Tennessee in the next two months. It would be so delicious if the tires on the media trucks mysteriously kept deflating! But I suppose the law abiding conservatives would not do such things and that's why they get exploited so often by the scum in media.

My kids pretty much had access to the BB guns but I was a constant source of input both positive and negative. The real firearms were locked up in safes. Had one of them showed the slightest instability with their BB guns those guns would have also been locked up.

20
posted on 07/07/2013 6:52:43 AM PDT
by Vaquero
(Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)

Yeah, we had a “two pump” rule - no more than two pumps during battles. Jeez we were stupid. No safety glasses, just kids in the woods. I know some were violating the two pump rule because we dug more than one bb out from under skin.

I second everything you say. I had a 17 caliber Crossman rifle (I forget the model) with pump and CO2 capability, firing BBs or lead pellets and it was great for target practice. It would punch a hole through 18 gauge sheet steel though I never tried it on a varmint. My sons and daughter would use it under supervision - most of the time and were taught to give it all the respect they should show for any firearm.

I guess I didn't think it would be good for practice because it's not the weapon you're actually going to be using, whether to protect yourself or to hunt. My son, who now works with SAWs and other serious things, was just having fun with it in the basement. It certainly -looks- like a serious weapon of the type that liberals hate and fear, however, and if some wicked sinner came in the back door and saw that facing him, he would probably reconsider any nefarious purpose he had. ;-) Nonetheless, I prefer "real" guns and I want to practice with them until they feel like part of me.

They sure a hell are not the good old “Red Ryder”, lever action BB guns we had a kids. Today’s versions (improperly named) are equal to more high powered .17 and .22 calibers used for hunting purposes. The are actually “pellet” guns (usually lead shaped projectiles)rather than the older, copper coated, round shaped “BB” guns of old.

One commenter at he paper: “Guns leave a long trail of sadness, heartache, and death.”

My response:Except when that gun ends the long trail of sadness, heartache and death caused by criminals with no respect for life or humanity. A gun is a tool, it is used by man as all tools are, the failure is in man not a tool. Sadly bad choices were made here, the tool was left unrestricted to immature children and a very small child was left in the care of other young children.

31
posted on 07/07/2013 10:20:33 AM PDT
by Mastador1
(I'll take a bad dog over a good politician any day!)

I have a Crossman pump up BB/Pellet pistol and it will move a BB at over 500fps, probably powerful enough to penetrate deep into a four year olds skull. If you want to see sheer stupidity in action check the comments from Leon Johnson on the Johnson City Press, Sheer liberal stupidity.

35
posted on 07/07/2013 1:11:36 PM PDT
by Mastador1
(I'll take a bad dog over a good politician any day!)

For us, there's no need. The dog kills and eats any treerats who dare to venture into our yard. My son just wanted it because it looked fun and some buddy gave it to him. Now he's in the USMC and has fun with far, far nastier toys, learning to break things and kill bad guys, so this is sitting in the basement. With all of you nice gentlemen telling me about this pellet gun, you have made it sound interesting so I will pick it up and fool with it. After all, he always played with my real guns so surely I can play with his pellet guns.

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